uwe_lueck > texmap > makeshow

Change and show PDF with TeX “immediately,” and link I/O

[ LaTeX “make” | speed | reload DVI | reload PDF | editor-previewer synchronization ]

This page addresses approaching WYSIWYG with TeX plus some “ordinary TeX previewer” by smart reprocessing of TeX’s output files (of text/.txt/ASCII type). Aspects of this include placing the editor cursor automatically at the code line that generated a certain passage in the screen preview of the document (“editor-previewer synchronization”).

This page owes a lot to James Quirk, Jim Diamond, Tom Schneider, and Martin Sievers.

  1. Running TeX (the typesetting engine) once on the main source typically does not suffice. Another TeX run (or still another) may be needed, maybe preceded by running BibTeX and/or makeindex etc.

  2. Speed: For speeding-up compilation, (part of) the LaTeX preamble (loading packages/macros) may be moved into the format:[Martin Sievers 2010/05/04]

  3. DVI reload:  Having rerun “TeX completely” in a way alluded to previously, you just need to move to the “DVI preview” window now, which may show YAP or xdvi nowadays. Usually, this shows exactly the result of your most recent code change. I am not sure in the case of changing a macro definition … actually, it seems that the DVI just is reloaded to the same page (and position) as before.
  4. PDF reload:  The same feature with PDF (replacing DVI) may be less easy to obtain. This, or “how to get a PDF to reload to the same page when the file changes” , has been addressed on the texhax mailing list starting with Tom Schneider’s controlling pdf reader (Apr 18, 2010).

  5. Editor-Previewer Synchronization:  The iTeXMac-pdfsync page explains the notion of editor-previewer synchronization (for the case of PDF previewers):

    The Xdvi(k) SourceForge page describes the latter feature as inverse (or also “reverse”) search, the former one as forward search (also called “direct search”), and names editors like AUCTeX supporting inverse search as well.

Please report corrections, amendments, and suggestions to uwe “dot” lueck “at” web “dot” de!

Last revised 2015-09-24 © Uwe Lück

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